IIT Bhubaneswar fails to meet PhD reservation quota, no ST faculty hired in last 2 years: APPSC

NEW DELHI: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhubaneswar has been found to "violate" reservation norms in both faculty recruitment and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) admissions, over the past two years. According to data obtained through a Right to Information (RTI) request filed by the Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC) at IIT Bombay, the IIT Bhubaneswar has not hired any scheduled tribe (ST) faculty members, despite the Mandated Minimum Reservation (MMR) guidelines.

“Our RTI data shows that at IIT Bhubaneswar has been violating reservation norms in faculty recruitment and PhD admissions for the last 2 years. They didn't hired a single ST faculty despite MMR. Lesser the DBA faculty, lesser the DBA students getting accepted and completing course,” the APPSC IIT Bombay posted on X.

As per the data shared by the APPSC at IIT Bombay, the current faculty composition at IIT Bhubaneswar includes 80.6% from the general category, 13.3% from other backward classes (OBC), 0.5% from scheduled tribes (ST), and 5.7% from scheduled castes (SC). The data also reveals that only one ST faculty member has been hired in the past two years, while 38 faculty members from the general category have been recruited during this period.

Category-wise faculty distribution

The APPSC also requested data on the number of faculty members from SC, ST, OBC-NC, and general categories across all IITs. In response to the RTI request, it was reported that a total of 211 faculty members are currently working at IIT Bhubaneswar, including 163 from the general category, 28 from OBC, 1 from EWS, 12 from SC, and 1 from ST.

IIT Bhubaneswar: PhD admission data

The RTI findings show a similar underrepresentation in PhD admissions. Over the last two years, 63 seats have been denied to SC, ST, and OBC students. In 2023, six departments did not admit any ST students, and seven departments did the same in 2024. The category-wise data of applicants and selected candidates for PhD admissions 2023-24 is provided in the table below.